This is a defence of the ABC. It is a defence against a government with no apparent respect for the independence of one of this country’s most important institutions.

It is a defence against the thuggishness of a minister such as Peter Dutton and the madness of a senator such as John Williams, against the blackmail and conspiracies that define politicians’ relationships with the national broadcaster.

This week, Dutton made an appalling intervention in the hiring policies of the ABC. He celebrated a decision to cease programming of a television show hosted by Yassmin Abdel-Magied, seemingly calling for a purge of presenters at the network. “One down,” he said. “Many to go.” Turning his attention to Tony Jones, he called the Q&A host “a disgrace”.

He said: “I actually think there is a fundamental problem with the ABC, particularly around Q&A – the composition of the audience, the selection of these people on the panel and the direction it’s given by Tony Jones. I don’t watch it and it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Dutton’s comments followed a despicable piece in the right-wing magazine Quadrant, musing on the benefits of a suicide bomber detonating his vest in the program’s studio audience. The piece was referred to security agencies for the possibility of inciting radicalism, but this was no deterrent for the minister.

The attempts to cow the ABC continued into senate estimates, which have degraded as our politics have degraded. The once useful interrogation of our bureaucracies has become a series of tinfoil witch trials.

And so the broadcaster’s managing director sits through questions about whether a youth news program was being used to recruit children into Daesh and whether the ABC had an effective way to decide if employees were really Aboriginal. Personal grievance overtook the litigation of substantive issues. The ABC’s independence was again dunked into a pool of petty biases.

These unedifying spectacles have a stunting effect on an institution such as the ABC. At a time when our media is in crisis, the impact of this cannot be overstated. The braveness of its journalism is weakened by a politics that conspires to actively undermine it.

There is no surprise that Peter Dutton has become the loudest of the ABC’s critics. He is also the member of this government most reliant on deceit.

His campaign against “fake refugees” is as specious as it is cruel. He has no evidence for the claims he makes against asylum seekers. His only interest is in prejudice.

Dutton’s contempt for the ABC is a contempt for truth. He is an enemy of information. His portfolio is built on secrecy and abuse.

Dutton treats all journalism as inconvenience and sees the ABC as an inconvenience he can control. For the health of our country, this impulse must be arrested.

When a government minister jokes about the sacking of journalists – as Dutton has done with reference to Fairfax and now to the ABC – his joke must be recognised for what it is. This is a minister who governs through ignorance. That is what attacks on the ABC amount to: a desire to rule an uninformed public. It is that same public that must fight back. The ABC is too precious, too important, to be left to the hucksters and hungry-mouthed wolves that lately lead us.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
May 27, 2017 as "Tinfoil witch trials".
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Karen Middleton
As today’s Batman byelection brings Labor’s coal policy into relief, Adani finds it still has not got approval for its Carmichael mine.Despite some suggestions to the contrary, the Carmichael mine has not had its final signoff from Josh Frydenberg, on conditions that must be met before the first coal can be extracted.

For the 21st Biennale of Sydney, artist Ciara Phillips is creating a collaborative printmaking studio, posters from which will run each week in The Saturday Paper. She talks about the role of art in social change. “I find it really difficult to explain: how do you make art? Basically it’s the sum total of all the things I think about.”

Andrew McConnell
Tiramisu has a somewhat naff mass appeal – it’s a homely dessert that should be for everyone but the addition of raw egg, coffee and alcohol excludes children and some people from the pleasures. Bringing together two things that complete every meal – coffee and alcohol – it gives the diner the chance to indulge further without raising any suspicion.

Nina Funnell
The old boys’ network will zealously shield their progeny from adverse consequences – not simply out of a filial loyalty, but to protect the institutions from which they drew their own power. While researching The Red Zone Report we heard from several former college students who had either self-harmed or become suicidal in response to the hazing they experienced at college. But we also discovered that the most vociferous defenders of hazing and initiation rituals were alumni groups themselves.

Paul Bongiorno
Bill Shorten seized the political agenda in a dramatic way on Tuesday, overshadowing practically everything in domestic politics. He did it by homing in on a tax concession that is costing the budget billions but is a sacred cow for the Liberals. Donning his Sherwood Forest finest, the Opposition leader vowed to fight the government’s scare campaign ‘because I’m going to choose the battler over the top end of town’.

Kings of War is a four-and-a-half hour Shakespearean onslaught in Dutch at the Adelaide Festival, under the direction of Ivo van Hove and scenographer Jan Versweyveld. To keep us in the picture there were surtitles, but only our leading Hollander, Dr Andreas Blot, had he been there, could have wrung all the subtleties from the performance.

The only real conclusion is that Peter Dutton is a racist. This comes as no surprise, but the starkness of it bears recording. To listen to Peter Dutton talk about white South Africans is to hear a man whose empathy is graded by colour. It took white suffering for him to realise there is injustice in the world.

Gabriella Coslovich
For Geelong’s Ian Ballis, a life sifting through other people’s discards has led to an unlikely creative partnership with Shirin Abedinirad, an Iranian installation artist whose work is part of the Lorne Sculpture Biennale.

Karen Middleton
As today’s Batman byelection brings Labor’s coal policy into relief, Adani finds it still has not got approval for its Carmichael mine.Despite some suggestions to the contrary, the Carmichael mine has not had its final signoff from Josh Frydenberg, on conditions that must be met before the first coal can be extracted.

For the 21st Biennale of Sydney, artist Ciara Phillips is creating a collaborative printmaking studio, posters from which will run each week in The Saturday Paper. She talks about the role of art in social change. “I find it really difficult to explain: how do you make art? Basically it’s the sum total of all the things I think about.”

Andrew McConnell
Tiramisu has a somewhat naff mass appeal – it’s a homely dessert that should be for everyone but the addition of raw egg, coffee and alcohol excludes children and some people from the pleasures. Bringing together two things that complete every meal – coffee and alcohol – it gives the diner the chance to indulge further without raising any suspicion.

Nina Funnell
The old boys’ network will zealously shield their progeny from adverse consequences – not simply out of a filial loyalty, but to protect the institutions from which they drew their own power. While researching The Red Zone Report we heard from several former college students who had either self-harmed or become suicidal in response to the hazing they experienced at college. But we also discovered that the most vociferous defenders of hazing and initiation rituals were alumni groups themselves.

Paul Bongiorno
Bill Shorten seized the political agenda in a dramatic way on Tuesday, overshadowing practically everything in domestic politics. He did it by homing in on a tax concession that is costing the budget billions but is a sacred cow for the Liberals. Donning his Sherwood Forest finest, the Opposition leader vowed to fight the government’s scare campaign ‘because I’m going to choose the battler over the top end of town’.

Kings of War is a four-and-a-half hour Shakespearean onslaught in Dutch at the Adelaide Festival, under the direction of Ivo van Hove and scenographer Jan Versweyveld. To keep us in the picture there were surtitles, but only our leading Hollander, Dr Andreas Blot, had he been there, could have wrung all the subtleties from the performance.

The only real conclusion is that Peter Dutton is a racist. This comes as no surprise, but the starkness of it bears recording. To listen to Peter Dutton talk about white South Africans is to hear a man whose empathy is graded by colour. It took white suffering for him to realise there is injustice in the world.

Gabriella Coslovich
For Geelong’s Ian Ballis, a life sifting through other people’s discards has led to an unlikely creative partnership with Shirin Abedinirad, an Iranian installation artist whose work is part of the Lorne Sculpture Biennale.